Creating a new form of asphalt, Ghana is Building Roads out of Plastic

Thanks to Nelplast, plastic bags can now have a new life as part of a road as, what WEF describes as a new form of asphalt. Nelplast shreds the bags and mixes them with sand to create this asphalt, which requires fewer natural resources to create, lasts a long time, and is resilient to boot. And it’s not just plastic bags that can be utilized, but just about any kind of plastic garbage.

Network engineer Nelson Boateng is behind Nelplast; online publication Konbini said he developed the asphalt, which is comprised of 60 percent plastic and 40 percent sand. He created his own recycling machine using scrap metal and started the company to recycle around 4,400 pounds of plastic junk. The Nelplast website says Boateng possesses “over 20 years of experience in the recycling industry.”

WEF’s video said Ghana’s Ministry of Environment already has the paving blocks in one district, and it wants to help Nelplast scale up. In addition to helping clean up the environment, Boateng has created jobs; the company directly and indirectly employs over 230 people.

Nelplast aims “to seek the interest of the environment first in all [their] processes.” For example, the company also sells plastic roofing tiles and offers consulting in launching recycling companies. Their objectives include recycling “about 70 percent of plastics waste generated by the country daily into useful products that can be used for a lifetime.”

Featured image:  The end produce – Nelplast.

 

Lacy Cooke, Inhabit, June 4, 2018

https://inhabitat.com/a-company-in-ghana-is-turning-plastic-bags-into-roads/

 

 

Bike path in the Netherlands made from plastic waste

Dutch cyclists rode down the world’s first bike path made entirely of discarded plastic this week, in a move aimed at reducing the millions of tonnes wasted every year.

The 30-metre (100-ft) bike path in the 1,300-year-old northern town of Zwolle contains the equivalent of 500,000 plastic bottle caps and is estimated to be two to three times more durable than traditional roads.

“This first pilot is a big step towards a sustainable and future-proof road made of recycled plastic waste,” the path’s inventors Anne Koudstaal and Simon Jorritsma said in a statement. . .

Leading environmental expert Guus Velders welcomed the new initiative by Dutch engineering firm KWS, pipe maker Wavin and French oil major Total, saying it was a “positive step” towards a more circular use of materials.

However, Emma Priestland, campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said the solution to plastic pollution lay in preventing its unnecessary use in the first place.

“Using plastic to make bicycle paths may help to keep plastics out of landfill and … but it’s still unclear what happens to this plastic as the surface of the path is worn away,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by email.

Cities such as London, Amsterdam and Paris are looking at how they can shift to a circular economy – reusing products, parts and materials, producing no waste or pollution and using fewer new resources and energy. . . .

A second bike path is expected to open in the northeastern Dutch village of Giethoorn in November.